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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28968843">A Million Pieces</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtownfishies/pseuds/downtownfishies'>downtownfishies</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dreams, Episode: s04e16 On the Head of a Pin, M/M, Season/Series 04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:26:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>859</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28968843</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtownfishies/pseuds/downtownfishies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean said he was quitting, and he meant it.  But he can still talk to Cas, right, and it's a dream, so does that even count?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester &amp; Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Million Pieces</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean has had better birthdays.</p>
<p>He turns thirty drifting in and out of painful consciousness in a hospital bed, worrying about Sam and pissed at Cas.  Those are normal, everyday moods.  He’s also pissed at Sam and worrying about Cas.  Those ones are relatively new.</p>
<p>He doesn’t like them.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how Sam must have found him; Sam pretty much has one person on speed dial these days and she’s not actually a fucking person.  And Dean doesn’t remember much of the fight after a certain point except for hazy echoes of violence, the soundtrack of hell, but Sam only could have walked out of there alive if he used his creepy demon magic again.  So, pissed at Sam.</p>
<p>And remembering Cas taking hits that were meant for Dean.  Cas lied, or at least hid the truth of Dean’s failure, his weakness, didn’t argue when Dean told him he was handing in the towel, just sat his marble statue ass beside the bed in silence, not a scratch on him while Dean was still bruised and bleeding.  Cas was supposed to be</p>
<p>What?</p>
<p>Cas is a soldier of heaven, which is why he pulled Alistair off Dean in the warehouse and kept the demon from killing him, why he sat beside Dean’s hospital bed until he fell asleep even though he has his own shitty problems to deal with.  Cas is</p>
<p>Dean doesn’t have room to worry about people who aren’t Sam.  That’s not his job.</p>
<p>Cas is not his job.  The world is not his job.</p>
<p>He needs a damn vacation.</p>
<p>In his dreams he gets one, sipping a cold beer in a bar full of vague strangers, nobody wants anything from him or even knows his name.  There’s music playing, probably, and his head doesn’t hurt so bad anymore.</p>
<p>And he’s not alone.</p>
<p>“What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>“I don’t wish to intrude.  I can go.”</p>
<p>“Not what I asked.”</p>
<p>Cas climbs onto the barstool beside him with an awkward hesitance.  Dean doesn’t spare more than a second to wonder whether this is just a dream of Cas or the actual angel Castiel visiting his dreams; Cas’s presence feels fundamentally different from everything else in the bar.  Realer than the jukebox or the smoky room or the bottle in Dean’s hands, the label on which reads simply, “beer.”</p>
<p>“You called,” Cas says.</p>
<p>“I didn’t.”</p>
<p>“You did.”  He doesn’t sound annoyed to have been summoned (accidentally, if that’s even what happened, Dean’s still not admitting to anything), he just seems tired.</p>
<p>“How’s heaven?”  Dean said he was quitting and he meant it.  He’s just making conversation.</p>
<p>“My superiors are not pleased.”</p>
<p>This is a good way to talk to Cas, sitting at the bar; Dean doesn’t have to look at him.  He can look at the bottles on their shelves behind the bar, the pictures pinned to the wall.  He thinks he visited this place once, maybe a long time ago.  Maybe never.</p>
<p>“What are they gonna do about it?”</p>
<p>“It is safe to assume that whatever it is, it will not be pleasant.”</p>
<p>“For you or for me?”</p>
<p>“I will be all right.”</p>
<p>“But I won’t? Good to know.”</p>
<p>“I simply meant that you don’t need to worry about me.”</p>
<p>“I’m not.  I don’t.”</p>
<p>He can feel Cas’s eyes on him.  He turns his head just slightly.</p>
<p>From the look Cas gives him, he knows Dean is lying.</p>
<p>If there’s one thing an Angel of the Lord doesn’t need, it’s a broken-down human man fretting over him.</p>
<p>“Stay out of my head, Cas.”</p>
<p>Time moves in strange ways in dreams, is all Dean can figure.  In real life Cas could fly away in an instant, but the seconds stretch out as Dean considers how Cas is likely to interpret his words and recognizes that he doesn’t actually want Cas to leave.  Then there’s ample time to be completely freaked out about that realization.  And he hears Cas’s wings, and he makes a decision.</p>
<p>Dean grabs his arm.  Every sound in the bar stops.</p>
<p>Cas looks down at Dean’s hand, more curious than stop-touching-me-or-I’ll-rip-your-arm-off.</p>
<p>“Just quit reading my mind.”</p>
<p>He lets go, and the hum of conversation resumes in the background.</p>
<p>“I was reading your face.  Your mind is rather more complex.”</p>
<p>Dean laughs.  “You’d be the first one to say so.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t have it in him to look at Cas’s face just now, so he waves for the bartender to bring them another beer.</p>
<p>Dean places the bottle in front of Cas, who frowns at it.</p>
<p>“You drink it.”</p>
<p>“I do not.”</p>
<p>“It’s dream beer, Cas.  Probably doesn’t even count.  This is what friends do after a shitty day at work.”</p>
<p>Cas picks up the bottle and examines the label.</p>
<p>“Friends,” he repeats quietly, almost to himself.</p>
<p>Dean doesn’t comment on it, tries not to think to hard about it, just takes another drink.</p>
<p>When he wakes up there’s no angel by his bedside, but Sam has smuggled pie into Dean’s room.  There’s still a lot that needs to be said, but it can wait.</p>
<p>Dean has had worse birthdays.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://youtu.be/KaM1bCuG4xo">mirrorball</a>
</p>
<p>
  <a href="https://miraclerizuin.tumblr.com/">find me on tumblr</a>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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